European judicial training

European Commission sets goal of training 700,000 legal professionals in EU law by 2020

Brussels, September 2011
- The European Commission has set a clear target for increasing the
numbers of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and other legal practitioners
trained in European law. In a policy paper agreed today, the European
Commission aims to ensure that half of all legal practitioners in the
European Union  around 700,000  participate in some form of European
judicial training by 2020. The aim is to equip legal practitioners to
apply European law  which is part of their role as judges and lawyers
at national level. It will also help to build mutual trust between
Europe's different legal systems and improve the implementation of
European legislation. This will benefit people and businesses in
Europe, who will be able to rely on swift decisions and proper respect
for the rules.

"An
independent, well-trained and efficient judiciary is essential for a
functioning judicial area and single market in Europe. It caters for
good and prompt judicial decisions strengthening predictability and
legal certainty. As European law is part of everyday life, citizens and
businesses want to know that they can count on a knowledgeable and
well-trained judiciary across the Union enabling them to exercise their
rights and get justice. But judges and lawyers delivering such justice
need to know the rules to be able to apply them effectively, said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner. "Thats
why I want to set a clear and ambitious target for expanding training
in how the judiciaries in Europe apply European law. This will help
cement our efforts to create an EU-wide area of justice, improving the
way the internal market operates. Judicial training is central to a
modern and well-functioning judiciary capable of reducing the higher
risks and higher transactions costs that impede economic growth.
European judicial training is therefore a much needed investment to
develop justice for growth."

Background

There
are around 1.4 million legal practitioners in the EU, including judges,
prosecutors, lawyers, notaries, bailiffs and court staff. The
Commission wants to enable at least half of these legal practitioners
to participate in European judicial training at local, national or
European level by 2020. It has set an additional target of ensuring
that all legal practitioners benefit from at least one week's training
in EU law during their career.

To
achieve this, it has called on national governments, councils for the
judiciary, professional bodies and judicial training institutions both
at EU and national level to commit to integrating EU law into their
training programmes and to increasing the volume of courses and
participants.

The Commission itself
intends to facilitate access to EU funding to support high-quality
training projects, including e-learning. Under the EU's new
multi-annual financial framework, the Commission has proposed to make
European judicial training a major priority, with the aim of training
more than 20,000 legal practitioners a year by 2020.

To
help build a common European judicial culture based on mutual trust,
the Commission will launch a two-week exchange programme for new judges
and prosecutors from 2014 onwards. The Commission will support training
through the European e-Justice Portal
 the EU's one-stop shop for laws and access to justice in all EU
countries  and by sharing practical guidelines on training
methodologies and evaluation.